GREAT-POWER COOPERATION UNDER CONDITIONS OF LIMITED RECIPROCITY - FROM EMPIRICAL TO FORMAL ANALYSIS

Theorists of cooperation argue that reciprocity combined with cooperat ive initiatives can allow cooperation to emerge between self-intereste d actors caught in collective goods dilemmas and lacking binding autho rity. Cooperation among the world's great powers is a key testing grou nd for such theories. Using U.S.-Chinese relations as a focus, this ar ticle develops a formal, decision-theoretic, model of great-power rela tions. The model is based on the empirical evidence from the Three-Way Street study of the U.S.Soviet-Chinese triangle during the Cold War. The empirical results are used to construct stylized conditions that r estrict the model in ways corresponding to our best empirical knowledg e of great-power relations. These restrictions allow the model to be s implified (becoming decision-theoretic rather than game-theoretic), wi thout losing empirical realism. The restrictions also allow the model to be generalized in several ways; it allows for graduated play along a scale of cooperation-conflict and for limited (partial) reciprocity in response to movements along that scale. Payoffs are defined along a scale of severity (relative incentives to defect vs. cooperate) in ga mes of Prisoner's Dilemma, Stag Hunt, Chicken, Deadlock, or Harmony. T he model implies that limited reciprocity is surprisingly effective in creating the conditions for cooperation to emerge, under a range of p ayoff structures and realistic discounting of future outcomes.